In this Newbery Honor novel, New York Times bestselling author Rita
Williams-Garcia tells the story of three sisters who travel to Oakland,
California, in 1968 to meet the mother who abandoned them. A strong
option for summer reading--take this book along on a family road trip or
enjoy it at home.
This moving, funny novel won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical
Fiction and the Coretta Scott King Award and was a National Book Award
Finalist. Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern's story continues in P.S. Be
Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama.
Readers who enjoy Christopher Paul Curtis's The Watsons Go to
Birmingham and Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming will find
much to love in One Crazy Summer. Rita Williams-Garcia's books about
Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern can also be read alongside nonfiction
explorations of American history such as Jason Reynolds's and Ibram X.
Kendi's books.
In One Crazy Summer, eleven-year-old Delphine is like a mother to her
two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern. She's had to be, ever since their
mother, Cecile, left them seven years ago for a radical new life in
California. But when the sisters arrive from Brooklyn to spend the
summer with their mother, Cecile is nothing like they imagined.
While the girls hope to go to Disneyland and meet Tinker Bell, their
mother sends them to a day camp run by the Black Panthers. Unexpectedly,
Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern learn much about their family, their
country, and themselves during one truly crazy summer.
This novel was the first featured title for Marley D's Reading Party,
launched after the success of #1000BlackGirlBooks. Maria Russo, in a
New York Times list of "great kids' books with diverse characters,"
called it "witty and original."
"This vibrant and moving award-winning novel has heart to spare,"
commented Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich in her Brightly article "Knowing
Our History to Build a Brighter Future: Books to Help Kids Understand
the Fight for Racial Equality."
